8) Neanderthals need nerds. The cool gang banger who is knifed on Saturday night suddenly in extremis worships the surgeon who stiches up his liver and kidneys — a target whom he would otherwise have robbed earlier that Saturday afternoon. The thug who strips the copper wire from our streetlights nonetheless assumes a nerdish engineer will keep designing the wiring scheme that runs his car’s CD. For the good life to go on, each illiterate punk demands one corresponding graduate student at MIT to take care of him. When the former outnumber the latter, then civilization usually winds down.

9) Ideology, for all the protestations of the zealot, is now not to be taken too seriously — not in this age of global leisure and affluence. The pro-Palestinian European activist expects to stay at a comfortable Israeli hotel. The zealous supporter of affirmative action in row 22 on a transcontinental flight expects that tribal considerations will not adjudicate who is piloting his 747. The opponent of vouchers prefers his kids in Sidwell Friends to the D.C. public schools. The La Raza activist at the university does not really wish his tony suburb to resemble Oaxaca. Guantanamo is a horrific gulag in December — and a reasonable solution to an intractable problem by January 21. These hypocrisies are driven by both age-old and more recent fuels: power is always preferable to principle, at least for those who are attracted to office-seeking. And in this affluent age, it is nearly impossible for the populist to live the life of deprivation. Politics has become too lucrative a business; and the populace is no longer so poor.

10) Owing in our new millennium shall be less stressful than saving. The man with a little money in the bank is more worried that he thereby will be taxed more, earn no interest, or have his small sum expropriated, than the borrower is worried that he will have to pay back the full amount of quite a lot that he borrowed for his mortgage, credit card, or student loan. The saver is suspect of doing something bad to the borrower; savers are always active-voice beneficiaries, debtors passive-voice victims. An American without debt or a federal program to relieve it is not really an American. Before this Greek mess is over with, the press and elite opinion will have convinced us that the Germans who lost nearly $400 billion really are merciless and conniving and the Greeks who squandered it really are victims and largely innocent. In the modern age, the history of lending and borrowing does not count; the present ledger book trumps all: why do poor Greeks have to pay back rich Germans? Or better yet, if the defaulter of mortgage, credit card, and tuition bills is still poorer than those who lent him the money or others who did not take out such loans, why, then, should he become even poorer paying the richer back?

I keep these commandments in mind daily. That way what would have seemed absurd in my youth is now as natural as the sun rising.

159 Comments, 68 Threads

1.
Buck O'Fama

Years ago, the kid next door was bouncing his ball against the side of my house, occasionally hitting a storm window in the process. I came out and said to him, “Don’t do that, you’ll break my storm window.” He replied, “No I hit it already and it didn’t break.” It never occured to him that he may have just gotten lucky previously, or perhaps the cumulative micro damage from the previous strikes would soon cause the window to yield, or maybe he just hadn’t hit it hard enough. Regardless, he broke the damn thing within the hour.

America is at that point now. All the abuse the nitwits and the idiots have done to the culture and the economy over the past decades have failed to break the country, and they now assume it is unbreakable. This leads me to suspect we are shortly to find out that it is not.

He stopped when I spoke to him. Sadly (or happily) I have other things to do besides sit home and keep an eye on my windows. And therein lies another part of our problem: productive citizens have jobs and other things to do besides monitor what conniving pols are up to. The lapdog media is absolutely no help in this.

“…And therein lies another part of our problem: productive citizens have jobs and other things to do besides monitor what conniving pols are up to. The lapdog media is absolutely no help in this.”

My epiphany came in ’92 during Clinton’s first campaign. When the media sold the idea that ‘character doesn’t matter’ to the American people. I determined right then and there that the media was our country’s #1 enemy. A media which had turned from being watchdogs (if they ever really were – at least since Cronkite) to being lapdogs and attack dogs for the Democratic Party.
I remember thinking that character was THE ONLY THING THAT MATTERED. Unless you were prepared to spend the rest of your life watching these lowlife political whores like a hawk, keeping them from marching you into serfdom.
I turned off the mainstream media in ’92, long before Fox News came along. The mainstream media is Pravda, only more despicable. At least with the Soviet version you knew the reporters were lying under duress with the threat of the gulag or a bullet to the back of the neck. American Pravda spreads its lies willfully and cheerfully. Damn them all.

Cronkite was terribly biased and it showed. There is an illusion that there was a time in TV news when reporters just reported the facts. It is that: an illusion. It wasn’t so much in what they said, it was in story selection and placement.

Of course, the “media” is now dying, perhaps dead and atrophying – but -

Why shift (yes, shift) responsibility by blaming the media. It is the same as blaming the street corner agitator for “inflaming” the crowd. There has to be something awry with the members of the crowd. I think that “something awry” is what VDH is consistently directing our attention to.

People don’t want to acknowledge the sources of our problems and deal with those sources. They choose instead to seek “solutions” from what they perceive as “other” sources.

When Cronkite turned against the Viet Nam war he certainly made it known in his “newscasts.” This surely precluded any pretense of professionalism. Johnson purportedly said, if we’ve lost Cronkite we’ve lost the war. I can hear Obama now: If we lose Matthews and Maddow we’ve lost this election. It would be as true today. The propaganda machine is indispensible to these guys.

Have you forgotten that it is OUR responsibility to control the cateer politicians that we elect? Judging by your window analogy you believe that it is someone else’s responsibility to replace the dishonest and selfserving with patriots while you pursue other interests which is a sure path to serfdom.

And Professor Reynolds thinks our country has a problem with “overparenting.” My son has always been told to respect other people’s property. And if he was caught bouncing a ball on a neighbor’s home, his dad or I would come down on him like a ton of bricks. But then poor child is “overparented.”

Teaching your children isn’t what is mean by over parenting. Today, discipline seems to be the considered same thing as child abuse.

Over parenting is the incessant demand that every waking moment of a child’s life be filled with some organized activity. If it isn’t school, it’s sports. If it isn’t that, it’s learning to play a musical instrument. The kid has no time left for unstructured play (what we used to call just being a kid).

I think the real meaning of “over-parenting” is when children are shielded from the real consequences of their bad decisions. Thus, children never grow up (or grow up late) because mommy and daddy are always bailing them out.

I’m not disagreeing with you, Dave. I think we’re both right. There are many aspects to over-parenting.

I’m 54. When I was a teenager, I was active in the Boy Scouts. In the year I turned 15, I spent 52 days camping and hiking and almost all of that was without adult supervision. In today’s environment, my parents would likely have been brought up on child neglect charges for letting me have that kind of freedom. Did I make mistakes? You bet. In aviation, there’s a saying that “Judgment comes from experience and experience comes from bad judgment.” You learn when you survive your mistakes.

When I played for a club hockey team in the south where all the kids had to work hard to be able to actually play, given that many of us lived an hour or more away from the nearest ice rink, our coach stressed constantly the importance of staying disciplined and focusing on what we as a team needed to do, rather than what we could make fun of the other team for.

When I moved up north and played for a high school team, where the players felt they were obliged to be able to play hockey, and it became about being seen as ‘a jock’ That team had no discipline at all, we got into fights amongst ourselves all the time, and people (including the coach) favored the players who looked good on the ice, even if they were inconsistent, and got idiotic penalties all the time. My last game on that team was after one of my teammates (quite intentionally) rammed the girl playing goalie on the other team after the whistle. I proceeded to pull him off her and punch him square in the face, knocking him to the ice. He was one of the coaches star players, and I was blacklisted after that.

The team I played for in Virginia won championships, the team I played for in Ohio was lucky just to win.

The purpose of this anecdote? When people think they have it good, when they never have anything happen ‘to them’ they begin to complain about things that they see as offensive to their otherwise perfect life. When people actually have to work for something, there’s a degree of seriousness involved. If you work for something you take better care of it than when it is given to you. That is what American’s have going on right now. The government is trying harder and harder to give everyone everything for nothing. The response is more complaining about all the other stuff we aren’t getting for free.

I don’t know the answer, but I know that we need to find one, otherwise we’re going to implode as a nation.

Then you have the story about the school lunch Stasi who took a perfectly good lunch away from a kid and had them eat chicken nuggets, and fined the parents by making them pay for the school lunch; all paid for by our taxes.

4. I would rather have some nations fear us rahter than respect us. I don’t really give a damn who likes me personally or us in general.
9. INHO you can give zealots what they want or kill them, there are no other options.

So, the old Commandments from the Bible are no longer applicable? OK, how do we apply for an exemption from the new set as defined above?

Actually, while our beloved government does like us to discuss it, we should all be prepared to take care of ourselves and to help those who are willing to help themselves. Maybe it’s going to take a civil war or great civil unrest for this nation to find its bearing and maybe there’ll be a miracle on the mount of crap DC is heaping upon us.

I’m not yet ready to write off this nation as a junk pile on the scrap heap of history, but it’s getting awfully close to that time. But still, I can’t understand how so many people support the progressives knowing full well Obama’s dream of Socialism and progressiveism cannot long last and cannot sustain him and his like at the top. Maybe it always will come down to the close group of like minded folks banding together against those heirs of Stalin, Mao, Hugo, Fidel, and the like.

Our ancestors had to learn to keep their powder dry so they could defend themselves. We have to learn how to take care of ourselves and to protect ourselves from those neighbors that wish to take but not give.

I can’t understand how so many people support the progressives knowing full well Obama’s dream of Socialism and progressiveism cannot long last

There’s your error. You see, socialism/progressivism can work – MUST work! The dream is just too beautiful for it to be false. It’s never worked before because it’s never really been tried, the right people weren’t in charge. Greedy capitalists keep it from working!

Right!!! To the socialists, communists, and fascists, collectivism must work. To them, it is historically and sociologically necessary. Therefore, the deprivation, dispossession, and murder that they inflict in its name is justified and necessary.

Historically, the truly productive have always been required to share with the people who chose leisure over work. Consequently the productive members of society decide to do no more work than those who do very little or nothing.

The ruling class (composed of those permitted to have weapons) must devise the rules and punishments that will force the masses to be productive. The rulers always fail because the masses produce only enough to feed themselves. The rulers take the food by force and there is famine. Thus always by tyrants (tyrannis is ablative, not dative).

The founding fathers created an experiment in which the peasants were allowed to keep whatever they produced, no matter how much. Those who preferred leisure were allowed to starve until they decided to provide for themselves.

The experiment is over. Sadly, the peasants ended up richer than the ruling class. So the ruling class created the income tax and regulations to put the peasants back in their place. Now things are returning to the historical norm.

Man was born to suffer. Its in the Bible and yet it still is news.

BTW, the rulers have renamed the old way of ruling. They call it “socialism” or “progressivism”.

Good points, but it’s not all or nothing. I make plenty enough money to support my family. I could make more, but I choose to balance leisure with wealth accumulation, the founders gave me that choice too.

Answer….there goes that leisure. Now, get with the program and become a “contributor” to the government….or there will be penalties for slackers like you! It’s simply obedience to the state, you know. Be a good contributing citizen, Comrade!

You are incorrect Jim Baker and sol is, as he stated from word one of his comment, “historically” correct.

The first “American” colony was based on “from each according to their ability and to each according to their need”. The colony, as sol points out, failed because the producers got tired of seeing their production confiscated for the “general good” and went Galt. Seeing the error of their ways, the colony leaders went to the ant/grasshopper system, allowing the feckless to starve or work. Once “personal property rights” were established that allowed people to keep the fruits of their labors, the colony thrived. Sure, maybe a few grasshoppers didn’t survive the winter, but, as life teaches, you reap what you sow and free will is a bitch.

So if the peasant class reaped all of the wealth and the leisure class rendered powerless, under our founder’s system, how did the leisure class then impose income taxes on the now more prosperous paupers? I suggest that the so called leisure class never lost anything, and that the real losers were the lazy among the paupers, as it should have been. The part about reversion to what was the prior economic arrangement, before the founders, is correct if only by the description of it.
Jimmy and Tammy Faye spelled their name as Bakker, if I recall. My only connection to them would be that I was around to suffer through that media masquerade too.

The American Revolution dispensed with the nobility, “the leisure class”. You had to earn your way. The middle class became ascendant.

Note that middle class then did not mean what it means today. Middle class then would be upper middle class to lower upper class today. Middle class were the self-employed, the craftsmen, even the farmers.

A farmer then had 7 kids and had no difficulty feeding and housing them all with just 40 acres. He owned his house and land. A master craftsman was elf-employed, had his own shop, owned it outright. Same for a merchant. Most folks were self-employed, and so, enjoyed the fruits of their own labors.

There were no unemployment taxes, no income taxes, no SS/Medicare taxes to take 15.2% off the top. A man owned his house after just 10 years of mortgage. He usually had some wilderness cabin, as well, a vacation home, as it were. Does that sound middle class, today?

The Progressive movement turned this all on its head. Corporation laws which gave corporations personhood. The Progressive income tax. Increased federal power via the 17th Amendment, direct election of Senators.

All these things were put into place by people who seek to re-establish an aristocracy… a “leisure class”. They do not really create wealth; they skim the wealth. Like trial lawyers. Like Wall Street financiers. Like lobbyists. Like permanent professional politicians.

They do it with the support of the low classes who also seek to be a poor-man’s leisure-class. They vote for entitlements. Between the upper-class “leisure class” and the lower class “leisure class”, they strip the wealth from the middle classes, the producers of society.

It is feudalism, once again. You do not own; you rent. The lord gets his fee. If you do not pay, you are divested of your tenancy. You have no property rights.

And the plutocrats and aristocrats mingle most chummily. Meanwhile, the lower class parasites sneer at the stupid workers who make it all possible. “Only suckers work for a living.”

Now and then, though, the peasants revolt. Usually, it is put down. Sometimes, a different overlord is put into power, but the system does not change.

Except with the American Revolution. THAT was a radical change. It is dying, however. We are returning to the eternal human condition of nobles and serfs. They do not call us serfs to our faces, but that is how they view us. Well… uppity serfs is how they view us.

“Allah did not create man so that he could have fun. The aim of creation was for mankind to be put to the test through hardship and prayer. An Islamic regime must be serious in every field. There are no jokes in Islam. There is no humor in Islam. There is no fun in Islam. There can be no fun and joy in whatever is serious. …”

And to clarify who the ‘rulers’ are: they are the Political class.
They granted themselves leave to ‘borrow’ ALL public pools of money through ‘private investor’ fronts and cut-outs.

Your Federal Senator and State Attorney General ARE the ‘investors’.
‘We’ must keep those funds ‘actively invested’!

You may not be able to borrow against the widows-and-orphans fund, but they can.
Then it’s actively laundered through non-profits and trusts- the Connected don’t pay taxes.

Government employees don’t pay taxes either- they just file and recycle ours in a 93/7 split with other government employees. The same may be said of industries that depend on government to exist, such as regulatory lawyers, corporate lobbys, and the 24/7 image management industry.

I believe that government is as large or larger than their agents, the Financial sector; a rough guess of 40% each, leaving less than a quarter of our population to lever up the world.

I cannot disagree enough with those who claim that corporations or banks own the government; the politicals have the guns, duplicity, and will.
Consolidation of power and de-facto nationalization go hand in hand.
If the current crop of hired mercenaries of Wall St., the commodities exchanges, the PR firms and legal firms won’t do the job, the aristos will find someone who can.

Expect ever more ‘inspectors’ and fines, and fees, as democratic socialism cannibalizes itself. In ‘advanced’ Scandanavian Sweden, 146 agencies have the authority to enter your home unannounced.

Expect also that the Governing Class will import or bribe more non-paying voters loyal to the Party, not the country, with increasingly negative returns.
All in a bid to retain power and pull up the drawbridge to their castle.

And if you think alzaebo is wrong, explain to me how the GM bondholders made out in the deal that kept GM from going bankrupt? They got screwed. There’s no other word that properly describes it except maybe the one that starts with F. And the same thing is happening to the rest of us while we sit and discuss whether to vote for Romney, Sandorum, or Gingrich or to stay home. If you stay home, you are to blame.

No.5) The idea that if you “find” it on the internet it should be free cuts across party lines. Soon, the only “free” stuff will be what you make yourself as talented people will turn to business models where talent is rewarded with cash rather than wholesale theft.

Have fun hanging that latest Henri Cartier Bresson analogue on your wall you got off of Flickr or downloading that song your baby-sitter’s boyfriend’s band wrote or reading that 7 volume fantasy series at 1,000 words a book written by a car salesman and given away for free on Amazon cuz the guy wants to be the next Potter movie billionaire.

Or more likely, we will go back to the “patronage” model, where artists create works because the are paid to. This time by fans rather than rich sponsors. My favorite author, Lawrence Watt-Evans, already does this

We might also see people start to create simply because they enjoy it, not because they can maximize the return on it. People might actually start reading more than a handful of popular authors, too.

That people can own arrangements of letters or pattern of sound waves is a very modern one, much less the current laws that basically make them owned forever.

Is it worth losing all our history and culture just to protect the pockets of a few large corporations who can bribe politicians to constantly expand

“ Debt is a mirage. Borrowing right now has no connection with repaying [it] eons later.”

…by the as yet unborn. Goodness gracious, what has the left against the unborn, in so multifaceted a pogrom of punishment and/or infanticide…?
…If nothing else but rank projection of their self loathing onto a secret desire to obliterate their banal lives and values before they had even been born, and by someone else’s hand, mind, rather than their own.?

“Goodness gracious, what has the left against the unborn, in so multifaceted a pogrom of punishment and/or infanticide…?”

They’re human. Humans, according to the present crop of “enlightened elite’”, are a plague upon Holy Mother Gaia, the only deity they acknowledge. Other than themselves, of course.

The equation is simple, in the minds of the ruling class. The fewer of the peasants there are, the more for those “truly worthy”. As for who pays the bills, well, peasants can always be made to pay more, at the point of a sword. Or a gun. Or just be worked to death, thereby enriching their betters and no longer being around to “oppress Gaia”.

I think you left out the most important of today’s liberal commandments:

It is the duty of society and government to increase the amount of copulation and sexual satisfaction at the expense of all other social goods, eliminating any and all social or legal rules that can interfere with this form of activity.

A place where coddled “citizen” live enjoying a life on the dole until the horribly cruel farmer sends them off to the meatpacker in exchange for Profit, which is BAD. But the farmer send some to his big brother in a form of patronage called TAXES which is good, allowing the politician to rule that cows have equal rights to us and more than babies.

We need a new political Reformation to rid us of the corrupt system of Presidential indulgences for ObamaCare.

If everyone’s going all religous lately, perhaps the most useful way to think of the Government Class is to think of it as the corrupt class of priests and higher clergy in the Church in the late medieval and renaissance periods, against which the sixteenth century reformers raged.

The Tea Party wants to return to the purer church of the Founding and the Political Class (mostly Democrat, but many Republicans as well) is defending its accretions and privileges and resisting all reform.

11. Liberals/progressives are by definition kinder and gentler also of course more moral and just than anyone who dares question them, their motives or the outcomes of their proposals. Liberals unworthy opponents want dirty air and water and are responsible for CO2 which is “killing us all.”

12. Based on #10 liberals are free to scream sexist, xenophobe, homophobe, racist and/or bigot at their benighted opponents.

13. Borrowing and spending on a vast scale now is a good/great/praiseworthy thing as long as you promise to “cut the deficit in half” at some future date.

14. A liberal supreme court judge can tell all that she thinks the constituion of South Africa is vastly superior to the US constitution because it gives its citizens rights to health care, adaquate housing….etc. Providing same is the duty of government. The MSM will never think to report same because they wholeheartly agree with her.

In the old Soviet Union (and now in Russia, for all that I know) there was an internal passport system. This means that until you got government approval to travel from, say, Kiev to Moscow, you were not allowed to make the trip. Ginsburg’s comment suggests the frightening possibility that, in her opinion, the current US Constitution allows the Federal government to institute a similar system here if its proponents can scrape up enough votes in favor of it.

But that old thing that Ginsburg finds so antiquated has worked pretty well (225 years) without some hugely specific litany of what the citizen can and cannot do.

In fact, some of the document’s original writers even argued that the specificity of what we now call the Bill of Rights wasn’t necessary.

Ginsburg also faults our Constitution in that it doesn’t enshrine the citizen’s “right” to education, healthcare, you know, some concept of an individual’s general well being, as defined by her and fellow socialists.

In short, the United States’ Constitution isn’t the liberals’ wet dream, which is why it’s under attack on so many fronts, including, but not limited to, by a president whose sole job is to uphold it.

And of course, they never want to CHANGE the Constitution the way its supposed to be…through a convention, with ratification by the states…..because that would involve US, the VOTERS to decide if we want the change or not…

No, no, no…WE cant POSSIBLY have any say in how the Constitution is interpreted or changed, thats up to them.

Don’t you realize, tomorrow morn, that eggs & bacon will probably kill ya, biscuits contain flour which you could have sent to the starving in the 3rd world & that pancakes & syrup are hateful towards maple trees & injure them deeply?? (sarc)

Who’d have thunk that decades of preaching “there are no absolutes [except for this statement]” could wipe out a nation? The culture poo-pooed the goings-on of the humanities departments all those years ago, and here we are. Philosophy matters.

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man –
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began –
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire –
And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burnThe Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

Any perceived failure or weakness in the system occasions another round of rules and regulations to fix it. That is the easy, knee jerk response.

And is the extent of the character and ability of Obama administration appointees, especially individuals like Napolitano, Sebelius & Lisa Jackson over at EPA. (we won’t even mention Eric Holder, will we ?)More rules, more regs, each of which has its own unintended consequences. No one single individual on Earth could name all the rules and regulations now on the books.

Anybody who wants to go more deeply than bandaid fixes that aren’t fixes at all (e.g. Paul Ryan) is thwarted.

Chris Dodd personally profits from a sweet mortgage deal offered by Angelo Mozilla of Countrywide and then proceeds to pass regulations through Congress to stifle banks, along with the equally self-serving and small-minded Bawney Fwank.

Until we get rid of shortsighted, relatively stupid and self-serving game players in government, at all levels, the beat will go on.

1. Some futurists claim that technology will provide a golden age despite ourselves. I don’t believe it, but neither do I dismiss the notion that technology may mitigate the pernicious trends which VDH describes.

2. Before writing my previous comment, I searched the page for ‘copybook headings’. Presumably the moderator had not yet approved SDN #17.

My local paper had a story today about more public schools that serve up to 3 meals a day to their students. The CBO estimates that by 2020 the number of children being fed 3 meals a day will total 29 million. If this story is accurate America is finished being America. This entitlement can not be removed short of violence and these children will have children will have children. This is how it ends for America. All the other entitlements can be tweaked. This dependency is a malignancy that will prove to be incurable.

I’m reminded of the Hitler youth as I read your post. Hitler managed to do in a few years what our education and political system has taken decades to accomplish – taking over the raising of the children. Regardless of the timetable the takeover is nearly complete. American parents have all but abdicated their role in raising the children. Few seem to mind and even fewer understand what is happening in the process or what is lost, or that the elites send their kids to private schools. To what end? Why to be lords and masters over the publicly educated kids! After all elites don’t live forever – gotta keep the ruling class alive.

A few holdouts remain – mostly home-schooled children and a few Christian schools. Parents are now being told to leave the homemade lunches home in favor of ‘healthier’ school food. The ‘let the schools do it’ attitude is prevalent among average folk these days. Have a kid or three and let the state take control of the kids – mush in – mush out – who cares? These aren’t the elite ruling class kids.

Subject of the day – Democrat good Republican bad – don’t ask why – it is what it is and this is what is happening in our ‘education’ system – AKA indoctrination labs.

No matter the outcome of the election in November this won’t change – the state is raising and educating the offspring of the ‘hoi polloi’. Barring a change in that we are destined to be a two class society – the ruling elite and the hoi polloi. It is what it is – the effects of that will take generations to turn around. I’m not hopeful.

The most significant trait Obama lacks that Hitler had is the ability to speak. But, with the monkey primping the media and this dictator perform for each other, you’d believe the entrancing speaking skills were a match.

As I commented below:

“After screwing around with our money, food, shelter, and children, what have they got left to plunder?”

Many if not most of those children are in families that receive food stamps. If that’s the case, they’re being fed twice at taxpayer expense. Or more likely, their parents are blowing the food stamp money on junk food (or fraud).

Our social contract used to be based on the highest common denominator, it used to say “do these things to succeed”. Now it’s based on the lowest common denominator, it says “do these things to fail”. And it’s all very understandable because a country of successful people is a country of limited government and a country of failures is a country of pervasive government. The people have the power n a country of successful people . The government has the power In a country of failures . Which one do you suppose is more attractive to politicians?

The accepted theory is that slavery was our nation’s original sin but that’s a false narrative. Our original sin was the concept of limited government, our sin was abolishing the Divine Right of Kings. And we sinned against tyranny as we demonstrated that a free people are more successful and prosperous than those in nations under a supreme ruler. But never fear, both major parties have been working diligently to address our sinful nature. In due course we’ll have made $30 trillion acts of contrition. All of our nation’s wealth must be returned to the rightful owners – the feudal lords.

The control freaks on the left want only to control the normal, commonsense behavior of their “enemies” and not the behavior of fellow leftists unless the latter’s individual and collective behaviors becomes detrimental or inconvenient to their agenda. If Democrats can get Obama reelected the point won’t just be that they have reelected a president who is actually harmful to the country, it will be a demonstration that they have found a way to control the majority of people who represents the antithesis of the author’s ten points.

“Do we adore more the politician who enacts another entitlement with someone else’s money than we do hate the curmudgeon who wants to see how it is paid for?”

This problem of sticking somebody else with the bill becomes expecially bad when you see that our birth rate is actually going down, so there will be fewer people being able to pay off these debts when you or I are either very old or dead and gone. But the above statement is very true, because if it were not, Paul Ryan would be president in 2012. He has the temerity to ask how we’re going to pay for all of this spending and even has the “nerve” to propose ways out of this mess. But Democrats could care less. As long as you keep handing out “free stuff,” the far left and the Liberals will adore you, regardless of who gets stuck with the bill.

Dr. Hanson;
When contemplating these gems and plowing your field, do the rows ever come out crooked? Or is that tractor equipped with a GPS that keeps it straight? (I can understand if you don’t answer this, since the chances of it being stolen would be greatly increased).

As for a comparison to the first 10 Commandments, aren’t there amendments to these legislated by the U.S. Department of Justice? Look at how imperfect the Constitution is. It needs all those amendments. And the IRS code, too!
And there’s amendments to the amendments because people don’t understand the original amendment, because it is in a language that is outdated. We even have a complete and separate judiciary department to interpret that language.

And if the credit score I have, is not adequate for my purchasing that mega-yacht I have my eye on, can I use the same number fudging formula that the Democrats, Congress, OMB, Tim Geithner, Ben Bernanke, and all the pollsters use?
Isn’t there a law or amendment commanding “fairness” now?

No “fairness” amendment needed. Our dear leader, President Obama, simply perverts the constitution by using “promoting the general welfare” clause. This gives Obama and his acolytes carte blanche authority to pass and enforce any law that they in their infinite wisdom deem making things “fair.”

Fairness for Obama and the Dems simply means rewarding/paying off their friends and supporters while punishing any who oppose.

Truly brilliant commentary. While we regularly deplore our “dysfunctional” political system, Dr. Hanson’s insights suggest that we are really suffering from an ever-deepening cultural crisis, in which values, beliefs, and habits of mind–all of which are very powerful things in any society–represent our greatest challenge as a free people.

Perhaps only in the US. Not sure any other nation follows this commandment. France certainly does not, and has not. The French have never given a damn about being liked, including diplomatically and in foreign policy — just one example, de Gaulle. As far as I can tell, it has never hurt them.

Dr VDH speaks truth, lives in a world upside down and points out the obvious to the already converted. Liberals promote dependency to increase their voting block – and it works. Elected Republicans sit on their hands passivly to allow the Democrats to do the dirty work of confiscating money and enslaving the future with taxes as a means of keeping their government jobs – and it works.
The point of no return indebtedness and dependency has been exceeded. Those who work for a living are now slaves to those who dont or who are crony recipients of a corrupt government. Said another way, culture is divided into two major classes: those who are “connected” and those who are not. It appears that only suckers pay taxes.
So what is the good news ? Most of us reading this site won’t live long enough to witness the ultimate destruction of the great American experiment and Warren Buffet and Geo. Soros will end up just as dead as the rest of us in spite of their billions. Pity the children and great grandchildren for they live in the upside down world which has become their “normal” but sick world.
As ever the good and well meaning Dr VDH is long on insights and observations but short on solutions. If blather was the solution then we wouldnt have the problem. But thanks for stating it so eloquently. As with his farm he keeps plowing the same ground , adding the same fertilizer, and getting the same results. A paycheck – how quaint in this upside down world.

As usual VDH provides a brilliant description of America’s path to extinction, but how does the electorate respond to these revelations? A growing majority of that electorate is rapidly movingf into the dependent class that will assure Obama’s continued reign over our demise. Obama continues to be adored with the overwhelming force of the MSM and he remains the annointed Messiah of the readers and followers of the NYT, WaPo, ABC, NBC, CBS,CNN, NPR etc, so that VDH’s message will have zero impact on the prevailing national views. Unless we learn how to counter the influence of the dominant media on culture and people’s attitudes, we are doomed!

Obama’s crackdown on medical marijuana is consistent with his world view– central government control of every aspect of our life.Unfortunately, the GOP supports individual liberty same way it supports responsible spending–in word only.

Anybody got a list of the congress- critters that haven’t paid their taxes? I…uh….wanna do a little research….yeah, that’s it, research!

“Snapshot of the IRS Income Tax Reward Program

On December 20, 2006 Congress created a new IRS income tax reward program. It is modeled after the DOJ reward program, but applies specifically to tax cheaters. This program allows you to receive a reward of up to 30% of the amount the IRS recovers back from unpaid taxes as a result of your submission. Although much of the program is the same as the DOJ program, there are some significant differences.

First, you do not need to prove that the company or individual intended to cheat on taxes. Rather, all that needs to be shown is that they underpaid taxes within the last three years. However, if you show that they intended to cheat, the IRS can collect for as many years that they committed tax fraud.”

A word about the word, “compromise,” and the way conservative pundits use it in the media.

The mistake they make: they fail to realize there is a bad compromise and a good compromise. Pointing this out would let them win many points and sway many minds. Let B. Hussein say he offered a compromise, but also let the reader know it was a bad one.

My final thought: One term of Obama has shown us what a term under an elected “communist” would be like. Any euphemism (progressive, Obamunist, etc) you might like to replace the “c” word with is fine as far as I’m concerned, but many conservatives now grant me that Obama is at least a small c communist. The first term has been a huge first step carrying out Obama’s plan. With malice of forethought his objective has bee to kill the United States of America; the foundations and principles of freedoms on which it came to be.

Thanks for you time. It’s been eight years of no fewer than a half million conservative fighting words from Rachel Peepers. Signing off.

Drop out—the only logical actions stemming from such enlightening steps entail throwing it all away, to infinity, whole bodily, by always and forever PERSONALLY taking responsibility: after all, and AS all, what the heaven do you think is the Absolute truth?

Either YOU are responsible for your reality, or you are not. Now, there’s a Manichean split I can get behind!

I bet NOBODY who’s sane would liken themselves to a dead leaf blowing in the wind, the epitome of a “victim”, having NO CHOICE in their next inhabitation of and as space-time. And yet, especially with respect to healthcare, in the USA circa 2012, the whole concern about the GOVERNMENT taking care of ME—why, there it is! IRRESPONSIBILITY, or blowing in the wind!

When it comes to bodily, and even mental, health, each instant of living lawfully follows from previous choices. That is, we are born with unique bodily qualities, having certain weaknesses and strengths. Jon has teeth prone to cavities, Jim does not. From the beginning, all the rest of health depends on INTAKE, or else the results of actions that put the body in harm’s way, so that an “accident” happens.

The overwhelming CAUSE of bad health is bad diet!

It’s really quite simple to understand.

For each person, given their born tendencies and bodily condition, there exists a best diet, which if followed would result in a most healthy and long life. IF everyone were conscious enough to nurture their body by only eating SUPER foods, why, golly, there would hardly even be a “healthcare system”, full of doctors and dentists, and all the bureaucrats!

No man is an island, though, eh?

REAL doctors and dentists, who TRULY had the best interests of their customer in mind, would mimic Jesus’ parable about fishing. Instead, of course, they FRY the fish—their “patients”—instead of teaching them how to “fish”. (terrible analogy!)

Therefore, even in these SICK and OBESE times, wisdom calls for returning to the SUPER FOOD basics. So, given that life always offers teaching moments, 24/7, what is one to do?

Buy the book, “The Brilliant Function of Pain”, by Milton Ward. Short of doing that, use his essential point, to wit that pain is a telling message. Listen to it, and change your act, accordingly.

I’ll end today’s polemic on a personal note. In 1970, at 28, eating the standard American diet (SAD) led to a case of bleeding from my butt. First, I tried eating lots of oranges, because I knew I was ingesting hardly any fruit or vegetables. When that didn’t work, completely, “fate” or “luck” entered.

I found a Prevention Magazine, as well as met a lady who was into Adele Davis, a famous health food author. Well-that all did it!

In short, I GOT IT! The system sucked! It was up to ME to take care of myself—and, there was a way! Certainly, I did NOT immediately start eating my own super food diet. But, I was smart enough to regularly make improvements, especially when reaching the age of 50, after which it was vegan, all the way.

I really pity the fools who suffer their choices, though. It’s not fun to be surrounded by a nation of sickos! Which grows, like topsy, in number and girth.

Parenting skills are ever more being brought back to residences. How? one asks. Simple. Out-of-work, underemployed, parttime employment, contract employees, and the like have both married and single parents spending more time at home…away from school’s influences.

By this administration creating an large “underclass” they have unwittingly eliminated socialization administered teachings in school’s, thusly influencing parenting at home. See, more time is spent at home (by these “underclass” students) than face-to-face instruction, indoctrination in schools.

As is evidenced by more one-on-one at home time…and parenting. Homeschooling is a perfect example of this. Stay-at-home single or married mothers want their siblings educated, trained and knowlegeable. This new American will be this country’s future leaders…brought up in the school of hard knocks.

Sure, higher education may well be tapering off as a goal for many Americans…they have to work. But lessons learned from work are far better than uselss pap teachers will automatically be limited in disseminating.

Who knows, a new American will emerge from this vast “underclass.” Less educated, but wiser in worldly matters. Who knows if this administration’s overzealous attempt at socialization has “backfired?” God Bless America! Vote massively for massive fraud is all around We The People (the “underclass”). Amen
The 10 commandments RULE!

What “liberty” is there without the ability to conduct business, grow or buy the food we like, own property and build a house/enter into a mortgage contract (business), and feed our own children without government intrusion?
I know this is a simplification of these endeavors, but we are getting micro-managed by a quasi-gestapo more critically every day. Looks to me that this regime considers their vocation of dispensing their version of “liberty” to the favored few. (The Third Reich has already done this).
“Our souls”? If I’m not mistaken, Islam puts the largest tax on the individual soul. Other religions, to varying degrees. If it’s possible to enact a “soul tax”, this regime has already thought of it, and it’s probably hidden in the “Health Care Bill” or the next “Budget”.
(There might even be a tax on the number of characters typed into comments sections at conservative sites).

As Dr. Hanson must agree; Prior despots and tyrants have been severely underestimated by their communities.

I would add one commandment universally known to energy engineers, “Thou can notst BS a pump”.

This means that no amount of EPA, NRC, DOE, Congressional, or Presidential blather will rotate a pump. If there is no connected electricity, it just sits there. It does not pump your sewerage away. We are fast approaching a time when the generators will melt, and the grid will collapse. Expect an outage which lasts five to ten years. The price of juice will skyrocket, as promised by our President. He plays with alternate energies, and permits but he and his predecessors have blocked a construction permit for a nuke for 36 years. We have libraries of reports, but no new generators. And BS will not rotate a pump.

I leave it to others to assess the results of sinning against this commandment. In my judgment, hell is coming.

Before you use the ten commandments your people “borrowed” from my people as a weapon to beat liberals, Dr. Hanson, take a moment to reflect on how the Ten Commandments have been abused for two thousand years.

How many Americans can recite the Ten Commandments? How many Americans follow the Ten Commandments? Christians have been in possession of Jewish moral teaching (the entire Christian Canon, both Hebrew and Greek is of Jewish authorship) for two thousand years. What have they learned from it? Depends the flavor of Christian is being discussed.

A Jewish schoolchild or a Christian conservative schoolchild or a child who follows the Latter Day Saints knows the Ten Commandments. A graduate of twelve years of Catholic school or sixteen years of Catholic school is a complete stranger to the Ten Commandments, the Hebrew Bible and the teachings of Christ in the Gospels. What exactly the Jesuits and the nuns in Catholic schools teach their students is a mystery. But they don’t teach the Bible, Old Testament or New.

The English Christians who founded this blessed nation were the most learned and highly evolved of gentiles. Only read the surviving diaries of the congregational Christians called “Puritans” by their foes and see immediately that they lived their lives and celebrated their holiday as virtual Jews. The “Puritan” Sabbath was the Sabbath of Helios (Sol Invictus), instituted in imitation of the Jewish Sabbath by a “Pagan” Roman Emperor. But in Jewish law, the power of hallowing lies in the hands of man created in his Creator’s image. The Jewish Sabbath is holy only because we Jews keep it holy. The Bible reverent Puritans kept the Sun-day Sabbath holy in the same manner that Bible reverent Jews keep their seventh day Sabbath holy. Take the pork out of the Boston Baked Beans the “Puritans” ate for their Sun-day Sabbath lunch and it is the Chulent (Sabbath stew) Jews traditionally enjoy for their seventh day Sabbath lunch. No accident that the “Puritan” Communion is the only religious service that American Jews enthusiastically join their Christian neighbors in celebrating every Thanksgiving.

To a Catholic, the Hebrew Bible is loot “borrowed” from the Jews, suppressed for a thousand years until its “discovery” by Martin Luther and scanted in contemporary Catholic education. The Ten Commandments are not to study or to live by but to worship as icons. Catholics worship Christ and, more reverently, his Virgin Mother. But they do not study, teach or follow Christ’s teaching.

This is an urgent consideration for politically conservative Jewish and Christian voters before a Republican primary that pits two active Catholic conservatives against a conservative Mormon with no religious axe to grind.
To a Jew, “virgin mother” and “triune monotheism” are oxymorons no more or less credible or holy than a Native American named Mormoni bearing Golden Tablets. Judaism is a moral way of life, not a religion. By the Jewish standard, what a person “believes” takes distant second place to how he comports himself, how he treats his fellow man and what he contributes to the commonweal. In choosing a president, character supersedes all other considerations.

It is not Catholic bashing to point out that Christians and Jews occupy a higher moral plain than Roman Catholics. Jews contribute a higher percentage of their income per capita than any other group in the nation, followed closely by Christian Conservatives. Those whose morality is learned from the priests and vestals of Rome, are among the least charitable of American citizens.

In Biblically observant “orthodox” Jewish society, not to tithe is sinful. A stone-hearted tightwad who can’t bring himself to contribute more than two or three percent of his income to the needy is beneath contempt. So low an individual is manifestly unfit to govern a nation whose Constitution and laws are rooted in the Bible. Both the Hebrew “Old Testament” and the Greek “New Testament” are obsessed with the condition of the poor and its amelioration. The Bible commands every individual to tithe. For any Jew or Christian conservative, the choice between the three Republican hopefuls could not be more clear.

Every American recognizes that this election is critical to our national identity and our national future. The Democratic Party has veered sharply left toward European socialism. Catholic Bishops, recent scandals entirely forgotten, have invaded the public square to promote their grotesquely hypocritical views on heterosexual marriage and procreation. Conservative Americans, who revere the Constitutionally guaranteed rights to individual freedom and freedom of religion, need to be on their guard.

The Bishops of Rome think they have stolen a march on Christian Conservatives through political linkage over the issue of abortion. Princes of the Roman Church who perjure themselves with false oaths of poverty and celibacy have no place offering “moral” teaching to anyone but their communicants. If lay Roman Catholics choose to take advice on marriage and procreation from sexually indeterminate Bishops who refuse to honestly poll their priests regarding their sexual orientation and sexual activity in order to better protect innocent children from sexual predators, that is entirely their business. The rest of us, however, should be free from both the Roman Bishops’ advice and their crude meddling in national politics. The Roman Bishops are plainly unfit to offer anyone but their communicants advice on any subject, most especially the subject of sex.

No decent and religious individual is not challenged by the issue of abortion. Most of us are morally opposed to it. But the doctrinaire and draconian, one-size-fits-all “morality” of the Roman Church is profoundly offensive. Zero tolerance is for zero IQs. Justice not tempered by mercy is no Justice at all. This blessed nation was founded by Deists, Freemasons and Congregational Christians. The morality of the Roman Church is not the morality of the Bible-illuminated “Black Robe Brigade” of Congregational Christian Ministers whose fiery sermons inspired the American Constitution.

Catholics came to the New World for loot—for gold and silver and furs. The Dutch and English Christians came to the New World with their families to settle and to make a new life in a new land. The result is that there are more than thirty failed, impoverished, disease-ridden and politically undemocratic and corrupt Catholic nations in the Americas and two Protestant Christian nations that are successful, prosperous, democracies. Congregational Christians and Jews came to the United States for religious freedom. Catholics came to fill their bellies.

Catholic Bishops and Catholic politicians are intent on changing the laws and the demographics of the United States. They need to be warned that the rest of us aren’t sleeping. There may be little daylight politically between conservative Catholics and Conservative Americans of different denominations and faiths. But the moral gap between us is the size and depth of the Grand Canyon. Politics make for strange bedfellows, But jumping into bed with pederasts and pedophiles is a political bridge too far.

The Nineteenth Century Know-Nothings are mostly forgotten along with seditious Roman Catholic outrages like the treasonous, homicidal and racist Civil War Draft Riots, hostility toward our British allies and support for the Kaiser in WWI and German Catholic Bunds and open support for Hitler in WWII. Words like “Papism” and “Popery” are not suitable for polite discourse in America today. But if the Roman Catholic Bishops don’t vacate the public square, such locutions may be resurrected.

I like your article and am printing it out. Good history. One point: the Catholics who colonized Latin America recognized that the natives were people with souls. That was established as doctrine at the University of Salamanca in the 16th century. The north European Protestants who colonized North America were Calvinist inspired. Calvinists thought everybody else were damned, but American Indians did not even have souls. As such, killing them was no crime. They were wiped out like vermin (like in the Great Swamp Fight in Connecticut). The natives of Latin America were exploited and driven but they were not supposed to be exterminated. They were decimated by European diseases that no one at the time could explain. Far from welcoming the massive die-off of the native populations, the Spaniards, especially the Catholic clergy, were much distressed by it. You will notice that that there are no Indian reservations in Latin America. The Spaniards and Portuguese mixed with the natives to a degree that north European Protestants never would. In the U.S. and Canada the native Indians are quite apart from the Europeans. Anyway it is fun and instructive to discuss these things. Another point just occurred to me (as I was pouring a glass of wine): you compare invidiously the political and economic near-chaos of Latin American societies to the relatively stable North American societies. Keep in mind that many of the Spaniards whom you consider responsible for this state of affairs were Catholics, yes, but conversos, or descended from conversos. Many probably didn’t even know it themselves but plenty of Spanish Jews went to the New World to escape the Inquisition or the whole atmosphere that went with it. Anyway it has been fun discussing these things.

Gee David, thanks for the jewish propaganda. It’s a little off topic, but jewish propaganda needs a forum too? Right? I gather? I suppose we’re all going to hell for not following the commandments too, I gather? Oh no, wait, you don’t believe in that now do you. We don’t believe god’s wrath is waiting for us because of some failure to keep the commandments as you instruct us to. Sorry, we just don’t believe that. God loves us regardless of our human concupescence. We’re not about to convert to judaism. If you want to point out all of what’s wrong with (all) other faiths, you are free to do so, it’s no biggee. God’s grace is available to those who choose to accept it, it’s not given to be taken away.

We are still paying debt on 1980′s savings and loan debacle, but our great – great – grandchildren will be paying the Trillions ( anywhere from 7-16 Trillion depending on which Govt agency is being quoted) placed as collateral for entities unknown by the Federal system from 2007-2010. We know the money was loaned, we just are not allowed to know who actually received it or terms of loans.

Were any jobs created by this greatest transfer of wealth in history..? Not a single one. There was no bump in GDP, which should have reflected at the low end a 7 Trillion jump in domestic spending / investment, there was not a single bridge rebuilt, a single power plant upgraded, a single transmission line installed…nothing.
When citizens of a Nation stand by and watch their country collapse, they should not then wonder why the Pumps stop spinning. R. L. Hails is correct, and i add ; We get the Government we voted for.

There has to be some nevo commandment/lesson in the whole California Prop. 8 debacle. Such as the will of the majority affirmed via ballot referendum may be overturned in favor of the minority by a sympathetic misguided “judge”.

I posted this same idea a couple weeks ago here on PJM. I wrote about the differing views of good and evil. I wrote how the Left has their Code: things like, “Fairness” and “Tolerance”. I juxtaposed them with, Thou shalt not covet”, and “Thou shalt not steal”.

I do not write as well as you, VDH, but lots of the things I post go on to be the basis of articles by you pros. So, all you writers out there, if something I post becomes the inspiration for an article from you, it would be nice to get a hat tip, if one is in order, please? “Where’s my pat on the fanny?”

There was some real prose in this article, by the way; some real turns of phrase. Loved this one:

“As is true in every peasant-minded society, wealth is as collectively scorned as it is privately lusted after.”

I keep trying to come up with a single word to replace “lusted after”, one which carries the same emotional index. “Craved” comes close, but lacks the illicit sense of lust. “Hungered for” is still two words. It is almost like greed or avarice need to be verbs: “… as it is privately avariced”.

It did not occur to me, because it has lost so much of its juice, today. When I think of it, though, it fits. We just need to bring it back with all its original power. It needs to, once again, seem truly salacious.

Dear Victor David Hanson, please respond to comment #47 by David Levavi, a regular commenter on PJ Media, who seems obsessed with a virulent form of Catholic bashing. As a professional historian, you could far better answer his distortions and exaggerations than I. And since you are not a Catholic, you would be less emotionally stirred than this reader, tired of Levavi’s rants going unanswered. I can’t help but think that David Goldman, Spengler, would intervene if Levavi used one of his essays to inject his bigoted, bilious remarks.

Don, Davids comment is the result of 2000 years of blatant anti semitism carried on by the Catholic church. Just a little research into the subject would explain it. Please try the research then fight your own battles.

Don, how long have you been reading VDH on this site? He has said in several past columns that he does not read these comments. He is not going to respond to you. Andy is right. If you have a problem with David Levavi (who is also right), fight your own battle.

Sadly, Woodsman, Don is in the habit of turning to others to do his thinking. This is no indictment of his intelligence. He has been conditioned into this response. And it is genuinely tragic.

The most egregious sin of the Roman Catholic priests is that they have interposed themselves as intellectual and liturgical middlemen to Catholic communicants. A Jew or a Congregational Christian has a personal relationship with his Maker. It is an intimate, loving relationship that provides great comfort to him who sincerely prays.

No such Heavenly intimacy is allowed Roman Catholics. All communication with the Creator must be bucked up through priestly channels. May a just and merciful lord have mercy on the victims of Roman Catholic priests.

BTW: Why the name Woodsman? Ours is a camping family. We started our kids on wilderness camping at the age of three. Our favorite campsite in the Adirondacks is a lake that is the last great catchment of the Hudson River headwaters flowing down from Lake Tear of the Clouds on Mt. Marcy.

The first sign identifying the narrow, shallow,weed choked outflowing stream for the beginning of the great river discovered by the English sea captain and explorer, Henry Hudson, aboard his boxy little Dutch ship the Half Moon, is a small wooden sign about 24″ square a few hundred yards below the lower duct hole of the lake (Newcomb), that reads simply, Hudson River.

We live off Riverside Drive in Manhattan, overlooking the broad and mighty Hudson River about two hundred miles downstream just before it empties into the Atlantic..

I got a mild laugh when Woodsman said Dr. Hanson doesn’t read comments. I think he meant “as a rule” he doesn’t read comments because I’ve seen him comment on the comments. Infrequently I must say. But it’s happened.

Now to the mild laugh. I no longer read the articles, just the headlines and subheads. But I do read the comments. Go figure.

I stand corrected, Rachel. Though I have never actually seen an actual VDH response to a comment, I have no reason to doubt you. And while I rarely read comments without first reading the article, I find that the quality of learned, thoughtful expression in the comments is generally equal to, and sometimes better than that of the authors. Of course I do not include Victor Davis Hanson in that. He is truly in a class of his own.

It’s astonishing to read this list of truths, any one of which could lead to our destruction, and know that Dr. Hanson is, at least compared to me, optimistic about the future. It’s a must read, though the intelligent reader will despair. I will link to this from my Old Jarhead blog.

Robert A. Hall
Author: The Coming Collapse of the American Republic
All royalties go to help wounded veterans
For a free PDF of my book, write tartanmarine(at)gmail.com

60 Minutes, of all places, led off last night with an expose of the sham drugs, like Prozac. Can you say, PLACEBO?

A close college friend, at the U. of Oregon, became a doctor. I saw him in 1975, a mere decade or so later, when he was practicing in Klamath Falls. Why, the healthcare provider had HIMSELF proved to be ahead of his time!

When I met him in a store, seeing him waddling down an aisle, he was nearly as wide as, weighing at least 300 pounds, why, I almost fled at once, in disgust. However, I followed him to his home to visit, seeing his ALSO overweight wife.

It was there that I got an insider’s take at American doctoring. He told me what his job entailed. Seeing sick people, every workday, he surely was worn down so much that eating became an outlet for his OWN stress.

His job—people came to him for help, so his first task was to diagnose their “illness”. As he related, though, in essence he was a middleman.

One of his most demanding jobs was seeing all the drug company salesmen, as they kept coming to “educate” him about what pill to use for what disease. And so it’s gone on, ever since, n’est pas?

Last week, in the therapy pool at the YMCA, a 61-year-old retired police officer, on disability, very overweight, having already suffered a heart attack, had to go and comment to me (jealous, no doubt) about how lean I was, saying I must have a good metabolism. Hooked, I was! No, my automatic reply was—I EAT RIGHT.

What followed wasn’t pretty! I didn’t hold anything back.

Now, the poor guy was already bodily SCARED STRAIGHT, so he claimed to want to lose weight, and did tell about the changes he’d already made—like using stevia in place of sugar for sweetner. However—

He was the perfect poster “boy” for most ill-informed, aka brainwashed, fat, sick and AGING Americans. It’s ALREADY too late for him! He’s the physical AND mental gathering of elements AND ideas that 61 years of immersion in DRUG “therapy” lawfully yields.

Yes—in order to turn around his withering unto death bodily choice, nibbling at the edges of dietary “reform” is utterly futile. Let’s do the math.

Over sixty years of sucking down mal-nutritious “foods”, and he thinks he can undo all that in a “diet” of a month, a year? No!

He actually, in this life, anyway, only has one best case path—a radical fast, for as long as it takes, that eases into an eat-to-live vegan diet: until death. Even in his dire condition, with all of his organs certainly damaged from so much abuse, right diet is his only possible way to reverse SOME of the suffering tissue.

But, come on! He STILL wants to have his cake and eat it too. That’s America! He—and the USA—STILL doesn’t get it, that he is HIMSELF choosing the suicidal path.

As I was slipping into dreamland last night, from nowhere this came into consciousness—

Live LIGHTLY a long life, or

Die HEAVILY a short life.

In the first life-affirming fork, a diet consisting of super foods, a “minimal-maximal” intake, follows the laws of physics as closely as possible. Under-eating only the BEST ingredients plants have to offer, loving your animals by NOT eating them—that’s the ticket to a long and healthy life.

And, STILL, most people choose the second fork, valuing their sense of taste above their mental abilities. Here’s the simplest from-my-own-youth proof—mom and dad ALWAYS emphasized “eat your salad”. And, of course, when escaping their company, it was GO FOR SWEETS and other junk food!

And, face it—to quickly or slowly adopt a habit of HEAVY junk foods is to literally choose to DIE, while living. What a pathetic choice!

America the pathetic—sucking on drugs!

Maybe, in a couple of hundred years, if/when the land of the free survives, and overcomes its addictions to PILLS, the survivors will look back at today’s unevolved humans as we do at the poor fools in the middle ages who were ignorant of the need for plumbing. Letting waste products run free surely was STUPID!

Taking pills certainly is NOW a deadly, for some, branch of the evolution tree—a DEAD END.

The largest and overlooked problem is this, very briefly: the methods of crony capitalism require non-crony businesses to injure for the cronies’ benefit and lots of ‘other people’s money’ to be spread around to our adoring political supporters and voters. There are few if any non-crony businesses left to be squeezed out for the benefit of “our” cronies and we’ve run out of other people’s money. Guess what’s next?

Now about those commandments by VDH, I missed the Orwell reference too. I like them save the 1st. I know its meant to be snide but it should not be taken that way.

1st, absolute poverty (as in no food and shelter) is surprisingly common in the US. Most poor do not have particular great TV’s and while they might have a cellphone, it is after all kind of hard to get a job w/o a phone no? Good phone service is cheap

Understand those kids after all come from homes with no means to procure food, either are socially fragmented or are unemployed/unemployable. I suppose you can just let them die but they have no reason not to do what our ancestors did and declare this state illegitimate. Given policy makes then vastly outnumber you and many in the military might prove to be unreliable at defending a “starve the kids” state, we are better off feeding them. Unless y’all can find jobs for them instead of Chinese workers.

#2 its a better fit for human nature.

Human societies are entirely driven by fairness and the system we have no is well past the point of ridiculous. In the past a person could pull themselves up , no thats no longer possible and we are significantly less fair than many a monarchy. You no longer get a free ride from religion to keep that in check so, you need to pay. Distribute or else,

Is this fair to the productive? No, but most rich are not productive and when it comes to fairness, its majority rules.

Do I want socialism ? Nope. Social Democracy? Maybe. Social Credit? Sure. But given a choice between a civil war or Socialism I’ll take the later,

I am not willing to die so the rich can get rich and the poor can poorer because the ruling economic liberals have stacked the deck. The American way is “hard work gets you ahead in free market” but the current system no longer rewards that, it rewards outsourcing and cronyism and screwing anyone you can. Thats not worth fighting for as its not freedom. We lead the world in incarceration per capita , invade others on flimsy pretense, just declared martial law (more or less) with the NDAA and in no way act like a free nation.

If they system were totalitarian and put in via revolution, yeah I’d fight for my State or my Country .

But if people voted in socialism and only voted in socialism and the basic protections of the Constitution were intact or better observed than now (unlike say the 4th amendment) , I’d probably work to change it but I wouldn’t break the law to do it. If it ends up with a bloated state owing most things ah well .. Better Red and Fed than Dead.

I always find it interesting when people use that fact as a hammer with which to bludgeon our way of life. I wonder if they ever stop to think that maybe we lead the world in incarceration per capita because we are a nation of laws (or we once were, not so sure now under Holder’s Justice Department) where if you are convicted of a crime, you pay the price. The astronomical recidivism rate of released violent offenders tells me we need more of them incarcerated, not fewer.

I would die for freedom, with out a second thought. The problem we face is that the people we need to fight “pay” others to do their “dirty” work. It has become somthing like the mafia just under the “radar” by hiding the truth is Progressive double speek.

We need to start the “war” by getting rid of “political correctness” and promoting the truth. Then the scum will have no choice but to come out into the light of the day.

You would “…die for freedom without a second thought”? Wow, I wish I had you in my infantry rifle squad. Look around you, man. Are the people you see worth dieing for? I used to think like you. Until I moved to a small town, married to an ethnically Oriental American woman, with two great beautiful intelligent children, and then spent decades defending them from neighbors. Die for those people? Forget it. I still limp from German shrapnel wounds, (I am 90 years old), but I’ve learned that no country is worth dying for. Put your life in mortal danger for your own pride and beliefs but don’t think for a minute that the people who benefit from it are worth it.

abprosper, I’m not sure what you’re trying to say. Every “poor” person I know, and I only know a handful, have larger and nicer TV’s than I do. These are all people on government handouts, yet, voila’ they are in flatscreen heaven. One of my sons, who is a fireman, received EIGHT THOUSAND DOLLARS in (ahem) EARNED INCOME TAX CREDIT. Hello!!!!! Ding, ding, ding! EARNED income tax credit????
Nobody EARNED anything! It is a giveaway. What kind of system is this when people who do not pay in, get a jackpot out? This will not work. This cannot last. Oh, yeah, they blew every last penny, so I guess Pelosi would think this is great, since we only borrowed 40% of it. What a great system! Sort of like unemployment dollars are the perfect economic fix.

Really? Perhaps you do not understand the latter. let me lay it out for you in simple fashion:

Thou shalt not have any other gods before Me;
Thou shalt not worship idols;
Thou shalt not do evil in the name of doing Good;
Observe the Sabbath (One day a week, do not work.);
Honor they father and the mother;
Thou shalt not murder;
Thou shalt not commit adultery;
Thou shalt not steal;
Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor;
Thou shalt not covet.

And them Jesus’ summation: Love thy neighbor as thyself.

So, how are these things not compatible with “Economic Liberalism”?

As to it no longer being possible to rise on one’s own, how do you think that condition came to be in this country? After all, it did not used to be this way, right?

The answer is that, it has been proven that once government gets to a certain size, it begins to bleed a country dry. Too many parasites attach to the host, basically. And you think MORE of this is the answer? Really?

Socialism, or its pseudonym “Social Democracy”, is completely incompatible with Economic Liberalism. Liberalism comes from liberty. More government does not mean more liberty, but less. The answer is right there for you, in the meaning of the words. Economic Liberalism means Economic Freedom. The government taking from you to give to others is NOT freedom, by any stretch. What are you thinking?

Oh, right. Social Democracy. Social justice. Feel-good terms which have no actual meaning of their own. Invented terms. Propaganda. Your head is filled with such emotional, nebulous terms, “All sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

‘And everything seems to be going off the rails!’
Like – guess who has been loosening the spikes that hold those rails together – and has been doing so since Toddy was a pup – the ‘nemesis’ of freedom loving people everywhere – Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.
And today we are being played like a fiddle at a Pike County picnic by the followers of those developers of the ‘isims’.
Communism – socialism – progressivism – unionism – Sorosism and toss in a smattering of plain old American Democrat – all of these jerks will be found with a pocket full of rail spikes.
Don’t you get tired of being played?
Read this after you improve on your internet game or look in a mirror and congratulate yourself on electing a colored Democrat.

Rules for Radicals
By Saul Alinsky – 1971
Hillary Clinton’s 1969 Political Science Thesis (“There is Only the Fight”) refers to an earlier version of Alinsky’s training manual. “In 1946,” she wrote, “Alinsky’s first book, Reveille for Radicals, was published.”
See From Freedom to Servitude | Training an army of world servers | From Marx to Alinsky
Background information
“Obama learned his lesson well. I am proud to see that my father’s model for organizing is being applied successfully beyond local community organizing to affect the Democratic campaign in 2008. It is a fine tribute to Saul Alinsky as we approach his 100th birthday.” –Letter from L. DAVID ALINSKY, son of Neo-Marxist Saul Alinsky
#HYPERLINK “#HYPERLINK “http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.printable&pageId=129361″http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.printable&pageId=129361″# HYPERLINK “#HYPERLINK “http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.printable&pageId=129361″http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.printable&pageId=129361″Obama helped fund ‘Alinsky Academy’: “The Woods Fund, a nonprofit on which Obama served as paid director from 1999 to December 2002, provided startup funding and later capital to the Midwest Academy…. Obama sat on the Woods Fund board alongside William Ayers, founder of the Weather Underground domestic terrorist organization…. ‘Midwest describes itself as ‘one of the nation’s oldest and best-known schools for community organizations, citizen organizations and individuals committed to progressive social change.’… Midwest teaches Alinsky tactics of community organizing.”
Hillary, Obama and the Cult of Alinsky: “True revolutionaries do not flaunt their radicalism, Alinsky taught. They cut their hair, put on suits and infiltrate the system from within. Alinsky viewed revolution as a slow, patient process. The trick was to penetrate existing institutions such as churches, unions and political parties….

OK – So our very questionable leader is selling our country down the drain – hopefully we can vote him out – if not how about ‘disappearing him and the bulk of his followers’?
Think on it!

Here comes another ‘ball on the wall’!
Oh my goodness – under the guise of a Presidential Physical Fitness Program I sense the development of a Ninja force that would in the first instance – protect voting booths from conservative vandals and assist the elderly and ‘the not so bright’ in voting procedures!
This is actually just another of Hussein Os projects for the growth of his new nation – and if you think it will stop with black clad idiots at election sites – check with the DOJ!
The following are some extracts taken right out of Hussein Os mouth.
War ?
You think ?

“We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we’ve set. We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded.”[1] Barack Obama
“The disruption of the present organization is the first step toward community organization…. All change means disorganization of the old and organization of the new.” .
“People of all ages, stations, and skills will be asked to serve…. I will set a goal for all American middle and high school students to perform 50 hours of service a year, and for all college students to perform 100 hours of service a year.”[3] Barack Obama

Hey – how about we cut defense spending and quietly slip a few billion into this ‘Squatters Brigade’ so that those who hang out in parks could at least have food and uniforms. And don’t you know that these new ‘warriors of the wayside’ would vote for Hussein O and his ilk!

1. Obama’s Civilian National Security Force at http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/07/obamas_civilian_national_secur.html (“Senator Obama was nearly 17 minutes into his July 2 speech… in Colorado Springs, Colorado when he deviated from his pre-released script” and made this statement without the teleprompter.”)
For more information go to
Department of Defense DIRECTIVE: “…an appropriately sized subset of the DoD civilian workforce is pre-identified to be organized, trained, and equipped in a manner that facilitates the use of their capabilities for operational requirements. These requirements are typically away from the normal work locations of DoD civilians, or in situations where other civilians may be evacuated to assist military forces where the use of DoD civilians is appropriate. These employees shall be collectively known as the DoD Civilian Expeditionary Workforce. Members of the DoD Civilian Expeditionary Workforce shall be organized, trained, cleared, equipped, and ready to deploy in support of combat operations by the military; contingencies; emergency operations; humanitarian missions; disaster relief; restoration of order; drug interdiction; and stability operations ….

Mark Malone wrote, “I posted this same idea a couple weeks ago here on PJM. I wrote about the differing views of good and evil. I wrote how the Left has their Code: things like, “Fairness” and “Tolerance”. I juxtaposed them with, Thou shalt not covet”, and “Thou shalt not steal”.

I do not write as well as you, VDH, but lots of the things I post go on to be the basis of articles by you pros. So, all you writers out there, if something I post becomes the inspiration for an article from you, it would be nice to get a hat tip, if one is in order, please? “Where’s my pat on the fanny?”

About the same location as mine is. I have had scores of brilliant insights taken, usually because folks here recognize that there is an embedded realpolitick position to which they must at least respond. But, I shalt not covet, because the Lord will reward the righteous. Selah.

By the way, you all should be watching “Clinton” on the American Experience, just to help us remember how cyclical Washington is. Juicy stuff is coming next time as Bubba lurches into Monicagate, but what I found most interesting in last night’s version was that Clinton, (pre-Newt) got through his budget (barely) which both extremes hated, because it cut spending and raised taxes. A long boom, but also the loss of both Houses followed. And then there was that healthcare thing.

I’m extremely impressed together with your writing talents and also with the layout to your blog. Is this a paid subject or did you modify it yourself? Anyway keep up the excellent high quality writing, it’s uncommon to peer a great blog like this one today..